World Bank signs $7 million check for Nicaragua’s food crisis

The World Bank has approved a $7 million grant to Nicaragua to help the country cope with higher food prices, the bank said Friday.

The money will come to Nicaragua via the Food Crisis Response Trust Fund, which the World Bank launched in May, and aims to help two existing programs.

“The first program will ensure that poor children in the most vulnerable areas continue to receive lunch at school, maintaining their intake of nutritive food at a time of crisis and encouraging their continued attendance,” Laura Frigenti, World Bank Director for Central America, said in a statement.

The second, she said, is meant to boost small farms to increase production.

Nicaragua´s food price inflation went from 10.7 percent in January 2006 to 34.2 percent in August 2008. The World Bank said the poor are disproportionately affected by these price hikes, as meager incomes are stretched further to keep the family fed.